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ALIEN ANTHOLOGY You've heard of Ridley Scott, James Cameron and David Fincher. But when you come to take delivery of the stonking new Alien Anthology, the name you want to address your thanks to is one that's probably less fam iliar: Charles de Lau zirika. One of the world's most renowned DVD and Siu- ray special features specialists, de Lauzirika has been responsible for assembling some of the finest special editions known to man - most notably the gargantuan. obsessive five-disc 2007 Final Cut of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. quite possibly the greatest, most comprehensive DVD and Siu-ray release of an time. So it's safe to assume what was previously known as the Quadrilogy will be the absolute last word on the space-terror franchise from hell. Ah ... the Quadrilogy. A hard act to follow for even this man - what could you possibly add to such a landmark release? Will Anthology merely prove to be no more than a nominal upgrade to excuse a studio cash-grab? As the uber-producer explained to Review when sat down to an exclusive preview of the new set in New York last year, Anthology is a labour of love. not just an epic contract... Remasters Of The Universe DeLauzirika says the real reason to care about a Btu-ray upgrade is its Hsuperior video and sound", and he's made sure to deliver both. Thankfully. we're talking less neurotic George Lucas levels of endless tinkering, more subtle edge- sharpening. De Lauzirika even managed to sweet-talk James Cameron, at the time busy fiddling around with a little project called Avatar. into taking some time off to personally oversee the project. And the tech wizards at Lowry Digital - 3 responsible for the immaculate remasters It's yet another new version of the Alien of the Bond movies -were enlisted to special edition with much better sound carry out the subtle job of tweaking and picture quality." the film to Cameron's new specifications The transfer of Alien Resurrection tells without creating anything that looks at a different story. While the digital encoding all like a digital fiddle. is absolutely top-notch, there's a small but Cameron promised that the new notic_eable amount of print damage. The version would be "De-noised, de-grained, from 1991. The former at last gets the impact is minimal, but a small amount of up-rezzed, colour-corrected" - and transfer it always deserved, with great flecks and specks are there, and they that's exactly what we get, the director care being taken to preserve how it suggest that less respect was given to personalty supervising a transfer of the looked in its original 35mm production, the fourth instalment than to any of the film that has seen the grain content and it easily surpasses any of its troubled others. Essentia11y, what we have here reduced significantly. There's no noise, DVD incarnations. Meanwhile Cameron's is a very strong representation of a good only a fine, well-judged level of grain, and preferred cut has undergone some quality archive print but de Lauzirika a wonderfully precise colour palette extensive adjustments.. clearly doesn't afford Resurrection the throughout. Most strikingly, there's more There's been extensive work on Alien3, same affection he does to the other films depth to the image than ever before. too. most Specifically on its audio track. in the series. Discussing a promo trailer largely as a result of better managed As de Lauzirika explains. "People said the for the set. we can tell he didn't cut it contrast The work maintains the sound was bad. and 1t was, but we had personally, he quips, because ~1wouldn't intentional elements of the film's the best we couldmusterat the time. have used so much Resurrection fo otage distinctive look. As de Lauzirika says. This time we dida whole new mix, if l had.. ~Aliens,of all four films, is the most bringing back. some of ihe actors to different visually. You can't just shoehorn re-loop their cfialo9Je. Lance Henriksen Extra Time it into the look of the otherthree.H came back, Charles Dance came back, so With extensive work on the quality of the Indeed, in the case of Aliens. the a lot of the stuff tha1 was really muddy f ilms in the bag, the team turned their reworking is quite extensive. It includes and you couldn"t make outthe first time attention to the supplements - but with two versions of the film: the theatrical cut - a lot of the lines where you hear it's just such an huge collection already out there and James Cameron's extended edition blowing fans, that's now been cleaned up. de Lauzirika initially doubted that he could DVD& BW-RAY REVIEW NOVEMBER 2010 029 beat his previous efforts on the DVDs "When Fox came to me about the Blu-ray set I ki nd of scratched my head -what more is there to do after 50 hours of content?" he said. "But believe it or not, we kind of blew the doors off the Quadri/ogyset. Alien Anthology Blu-ray is pretty much everything you've seen before plus a whole bunch of new stuff, and really amazing material that l frankly thought would never see the light of day on home video at all. period." The official count is tha t there are now more than 60 hours of special features - which, when considering the various cuts of all four movies, makes for a heaving package. According to de Lauzir ik a, however. this is something of a rarity - in today's climate, budgets for the production of extra features are suffering from shrinkage. "It's not entirely hopeless outthererightnow.but ithasbeenabit bleaker than usual," he says. "The bloom is certainly off the rose when it comes to bonus features" This may explain why the special features in Anthology are derived from the same sources, and almost always the same production sessions, as those on the Quodrilogy set. Although, when it came to hunting down new material, they left barely a stone left unturned. "If we don't have someone on the disc. it's not because we didn't ask," maintains the producer. "We asked everyone we could find. If they're not there. chances are it's because they said no." He notes that with newer films "People definitely have more to say because it's fresh in their minds. But was enough to afford some degree of hindsight, but by now some foggy memory might well have gotten in the way, especially regarding the ear li er se t visibly frustrated and. in one shot, soundt rack. On the Quadrilogy release. pictures. These existing supplements verbalising it We get to see the director the ce nsored version was simply called were produced in a sweet spot with just get up from his canvas chair, grab a mic The Making Of Alien 3 but this time out. the right distance from production. All and declare, "It's amazing to me that Fox it's become the slightly toned-down four key documentaries from the DVDs is the number one studio in the country Wreckage And Rage. And where even have been included again, but while it isn't becausethey'reallsuchabunchofmorons." the chapter headings were censored readily obvious on screen or in the menus, lt's surprisingthatthisparticular outburst before, they're now back to their angry they're not quite the same. Most notably, made the cut even now. De Lauzirika originals: 'Development Hell', The Colour the notorious behind-the-scenes expose padded the edit with some add itional Of Blood', 'Requiem For A Scream' on Alien 3 has finally been released in an footage to bear t he brunt of Fox's So how is it that we have been able uncensored form. censorship but says he was amazed that to go from the bitter acrimony of making De Lauzirika admits that only a couple of they didn't cut anything. "What we've Alien3 through the censorship of the the Alien3 interview subjects were "brutally ended up with is even stronger stuff than Quadrilogyto finally letting it all hang honest", but there's more to this doc than what the studio rejected first time around." out on the Anthology? "Time heals talking heads. Among the previously unseen The doc was originally titled Wreckage wounds,H says de Lauzirika. Simple as that footage are several shots of Fincher on And Rape, after a music cue on the Alien3 Perhaps, but the hea li ng appears to have 030 DVD& BLU-RAY REVIEW NOVEMBER 2010 the archives to bring out every last down Fox's invitation to be involved in scrap of cool stuff for this release," either the production of Quodrilogyor Lauzirikaasserts. Anthology. The only time you see him A few of the pods are actually new in the supplements is in archive footage material filmed since the days of the from the Alien3 set. What's more, the Quadrilogy. Most notable among these extended version of his film presented is possibly an explanation from Jon here was not supervised by him, but was Finch (who played the title role in Roman instead constructed from what could Polanski's Macbeth) of how he was be construed to be his intentions. It's almost in Alien and why John Hurt took definitively not a director's cut. De over his role. intercut with footage from Lauzirika says that Fincher "had virtually his couple of days of shooting.

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